Collateral
by Shadsie
Summary: Innocents die in every war, it is the sacrifice for victory. After Knives orders the strike on Sky City he thinks about the the butterflies who must fall in his quest to destroy the spiders.


Standard Disclaimer: Don't own Trigun, never will - the story and all related characters belong to the genius, Yashuhiro Nightow.   
  
Fic idea hit me last night, had to write it. It's a shorty, but I hope it's good.   
  
  
  
  
COLLATERAL  
  
  
  
  
  
He paced the steel platform, pondering. His mind danced over ceaseless patterns, continually returning to things that he did not want to think about. His servant had reported to him that his brother had been found - his target, the one he hoped to turn to his way at the end of his little game.   
  
Knives sensed that Vash was thinking about "home"...that city floating in the inner atmosphere of the planet, high above the endless desert. That city, Sky City, was a refuge for miserable vermin who would eventually be brought under his judgement and die along with those that inhabited the wastelands. Now was the time... the Gung-Ho Guns under the generalship of Legato had instigated the endgame as his wishes directed. They were chasing Vash now, executing vengeance upon him for wounds made long ago.   
  
How to order the dealings in the city - this is what bothered him. He had sent the plans to Legato - to be given to Hoppered, Leonof, and programmed into Grey the Ninelives. He shook his weary head. It was not like he had never done this before...in every war sacrifices had to be made. He stared up at the smooth glass - the containment unit, the prison... He had been staying here, in this forgotten place for the last twenty-three years, healing, regenerating parts of his body lost in the destruction of the third city of July. It was so long ago, yet it burned like yesterday in his memory, the stinging sensation of his body on fire, his eyes blinded by the Light. It still hurt, even though he was able to walk away from the holocaust, step by painful step, carrying a small bleeding burden that became a gift to Legato - his most faithful of servants.   
  
He had killed the Plant regenerating. He knew that it would take much of her life energy and that the culmination of his rebirth would injure her greatly, but he had expected her to survive. He pressed the palm of his right hand against the outer glass, leaving a greasy slick of sweat as he caressed it. If he had known, he still would have done it. He was the only one who could fight this war - he and his brother, if only his brother could be persuaded to stop fighting for the other side. She had made a sacrifice - an unwilling sacrifice, but nonetheless necessary and noble for the eventual freedom of her people.   
  
This dear butterfly was not the only sacrifice in Knives' quest to destroy the spiders. He remembered keenly his carefully orchestrated sabotage of the original Project SEEDS. He had programmed the ships carrying the Plants for a safe landing but the ships bearing human cargo for destruction - little knowing that Rem would do the foolishly noble thing and choose to save them instead of her own skin. As the escape pod was jettisoned and as he and Vash watched the only home they had known up until then explode in a display of magnificent fire from the windows, Knives knew that he had not only destroyed the human crew. As he heard Vash's anguished screaming over Rem, his own heart cried out in a silent prayer, asking forgiveness of the main ship's two Plants. They had been sacrifices in vain, all because of Saverem. She was long dead but he still hated her for that and hoped that if death wasn't an oblivion that she was somewhere suffering for the sin of destroying the meaning of their sacrifice.   
  
Now, he had given the orders for the destruction of two more of his brethren and it was too late to reverse them. He hated to think about it, but he decided it was necessary. The race as a whole, when Eden came, would remember them as heroes and honor their sacrifice. He wished there was some other way to destroy the humans of Sky City, but after much pondering, planning, and strategizing, found that the best and only sure way was to destroy the Plants, for the Plants kept the city afloat and the vermin alive. Now was the time to strike...when Vash was there, for he certainly would try to save everyone, the fool that he always has been. Striking now would cause him much well deserved suffering and perhaps bring to his stubborn mind the truth.   
  
Yes...Knives decided. In every war ever fought a few innocents became casualties- and there was even a term for it, "collateral". No war had ever been won, no victory ever secured without a little collateral.   
  
  
  
~Lady Shadowcat, 2002~ 


End file.
